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n the early afternoon of January 25th 2011, Ifound myself on the Nile corniche north of

Qasr El-Nile bridge, alongside about a thou-

sand pro-change protesters. Me and mycompanions had already been watching ex-

traordinary scenes unfold across the city all

morning, particularly in the populous northernneighbourhoods of Bulaq and Shubra El-

Masr, where small, mobile crowds of demon-

strators swept through the streets withastonishing ease, chanting 'down, down

Hosni Mubarak' and exposing a simple butexplosive truth to nonplussed bystanders: be-

hind the facade of a supposedly-impregnablesecurity apparatus, there really was nothingto stop Egyptians standing up for their rights

and making their voices heard.

Mubarak's security forces were taken by sur-

prise that day; thinly-strung and over-

stretched, they were powerless to stop thedozens of parallel demonstrations erupting all

over the capital and beyond. By early after-

noon though, they had rallied, and were nowstationed in their hundreds across the road in

front of the derelict Nile Hilton - rows of amin

markazi, helmeted and shielded to the bone.The protesters didn't charge, didn't fight, did-

n't flinch - they just kept on marching, headsup and eyes forward. And against the sheer

weight of human fearlessness, the security

forces melted away. At that moment mynewspaper called me and asked for an up-

date.

I remember looking around me at the gleeful

abandon of demonstrators running from one

18DA

YST

HAT SHOOK

THE

WORLDpart of the street to another - revelling in the

giddy sensation of having reclaimed their pub-

lic space from the state. I saw the uncertainty

and terpidation etched onto the faces of sen-ior police officers, and at the new columns of

protesters streaming in from across the river.And I knew then with absolute certainty that

for Mubarak, nothing was left. I didn't know

how long it would take, or what horrific vio-lence might unfold in the interim, but a fear

barrier had been broken, and for a president

whose power rested solely on a bed of fear -fear of the police, fear of the government, fear

of extremism, fear of instability - this couldonly mean the end. 'A revolution has begun,'

I told my editors.

18 days later, on February 11th, newly-ap-

pointed vice president Omar Suleiman ap-

peared on state television for twenty secondsand announced that Mubarak was stepping

down. This is a summary of my writing

throughout that period, as our emotions fizzed

about like home-made firecrackers and Egyp-tians took it upon themselves to not just knock

something down, but build something new inits stead as well, something that would inspire

and amaze well beyond the country's borders.

This unfinished revolution has a long and tur-bulent road ahead, but that only makes the

steps taken so far all the more incredible.

Jack Shenker is a London-born journalist whoreports for the Guardian from Egypt. His workhas covered Central Asia, the Balkans, the USand Gaza. He is currently based in Cairo

By Jack Shenker